December 19, 2007

New Audio comment line number - +1-415-830-5439 (and ditching K7.net)

Here is our new comment line number: +1-415-830-5439.

Here's the story...

To my immense annoyance, it seems that we have once again lost our K7.net call-in number for comments: +1-206-350-7280. That isn't the bad part, really... what annoys me most is that the number still appears to work! You can call it up and leave a message, but if it goes anywhere, it is not going to us! In the past, when we've lost our K7 number, the number has been inactive to some period of time, so callers just got a message saying that the number was no longer in use. Now it appears that the number has been reallocated already - or at least is accepting calls.

So please do not call that number!

I'm going to use this failure as an opportunity to completely drop our usage of K7.net. K7.net is a "unified messaging" service that is widely used by podcasters because it provides a very simple and easy - and free - service: Callers call in to a phone number, leave a message, and then you receive an email with the comment attached as a WAV file. It is great for a podcaster. Simple. Easy. Just works.

However, there is this wee minor little detail that is shown in the terms of service at the bottom of the sign-up page:

If a K7 number is inactive for 30 days (use is determined as a voice message or fax message to that number) , we may terminate the account for non-use.

This has been the bane of many podcaster's existence. If you don't get a call in 30 days, you lose your number. This impacts podcasters, especially, because our shows may live on out there on the Internet for an incredibly long time. You can still download Blue Box podcast #1 from two years ago which has the wrong comment line included (in fact, it is 2 or 3 numbers ago). So losing your number is really quite bad from a community-building point-of-view. If you put out frequent shows and get frequent comments, this usually isn't a problem. However, if you are a show like ours where we've been only doing maybe two shows a month it may be more of a challenge. I know that here in New England, the New England Podcasters group was instituting a "reminder day" where it was a monthly day to call your comment line to be sure you kept it. In any event, we seem to have lost our number.

Now, I can't really complain about the service because it is free and the K7 folks have always been very up front about the termination for non-use clause. All I can really do is find another alternative.

I have now done so. My new employer, Voxeo, has a website for developers called evolution.voxeo.com where you can create voice applications in several different XML variants (VoiceXML, CCXML or Voxeo's own CallXML). You can create a free developer account and with that you can create apps that have their own inbound phone number. For free. Anyone can do so. There is, at least currently, no expiration date or termination clause for non-use (although the terms of use do of course indicate that Voxeo can change or revoke the numbers at any time). So what's the catch? Well, Voxeo hopes that you like to develop apps on our platform so much that ultimately you'll need our hosting services for your applications.

So I've created my own little experiment in the form of a new comment line: +1-415-830-5439.

Right now it's just a computer-generated voice but I'll add in my own prompts soon. Interestingly, this number is also reachable via some other phone numbers:

Skype: +99000936 9992002622

FWD: **86919992002622

SIP: sip:9992002622@sip.voxeo.net

And while we are NOT going to switch from using our SIP "bluebox@voipuser.org" address, it's nice to know that it is available.

Since I know many of our listeners like to know the code underneath things, here is the full text of my "application" that does this:

It uses Voxeo's own CallXML language which was developed before VoiceXML and CCXML (Call Control XML) were standardized. Why did I use CallXML versus VoiceXML and CCXML? Primarily because I wanted to learn CallXML - and also, frankly, because it seemed to have the easiest commands to do what I was trying to do. It basically says a piece of text and then records up to 3 minutes of audio and emails it to our standard comment line. Ta da... same thing as I was doing with K7.net, but without the annoying termination after 30 days of non-use.

Anyway, that's the new number and the story behind it. Hopefully I won't be changing it again anytime soon!

Full Disclosure

Jonathan Zar is affiliated with Pingalo and is the Secretary of VOIPSA and member of the Board of Directors.

This is a personal project and neither the Internet Society, Pingalo nor VOIPSA have any formal connection to this podcast. In the interest of transparency we just thought you should know our affiliations.

Why "Blue Box"?

We chose the name "Blue Box" primarily as a nod to the era of phone phreaking in part to illustrate that threats to telephony are not new - they just continue to change and evolve. That and admittedly the name just sounded cool.